


The Halls of Mandos

by Bastet5



Series: The Tale of the Laureónoni [1]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Angst and Tragedy, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Everyone is Dead, F/M, Fall of Gondolin, Family Dynamics, Family Reunion, Gen, Halls of Mandos, Huan Is A Good Dog, Hurt/Comfort, Mentioned: Child Death, Mentioned: Fall of Nargothrond, Mentioned: Nirnaeth Arnoediad, Musings on Death by the Dead, Non-Graphic Description of Death Wounds, Rated Mature for Caution, Sillmarillion Level Violence, hopefully non-graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:48:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29884134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bastet5/pseuds/Bastet5
Summary: Darkness closes over Gondolin as the forces of Morgoth sweep through it. Its great captains perish, fighting to the end, and streets that were once lined with people going about their daily lives become carnage-covered. In the midst of this devastation, one dying captain ponders the nature of death and the course of her life as she passes into the Halls of Mandos. There she waits for judgment and searches for the family she long ago lost and, slowly, begins to heal.
Relationships: Ecthelion of the Fountain & Glorfindel & Gloredhel (Original Female Character), Rog/Gloredhel (Original Female Character)
Series: The Tale of the Laureónoni [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2197218
Kudos: 4





	The Halls of Mandos

**Author's Note:**

> I was successful with starting in medias res with my previous FBI: MW series, so hopefully I will be successful here, too. 
> 
> I think the basics should be clearly established in this first story, especially with who is related to whom, and specific relationship will be developed in more depth as this series continues. But just a couple of notes: (1) I understand the Silmarillion to be an in-universe document, and it will be interpreted in that light. This will become more relevant soon (Might as well put my college lit classes to use!); (2) the narrator of this story drifts freely between Sindarin names, Quenya names, and nicknames for her family. These switches are intentional.

What is it like to die?

How do you describe dying?

How do you describe death?

Gloredhel had known what death was from her childhood. Even in the bliss of Valinor where the days were always beautiful and life seemed unchanging … even before Melkor had risen, the Silmarils had been stolen, and the Doom had touched the Noldor, death was there. It was not a present evil or one that loomed over the heads of the inhabitants of Tirion upon Tuna or the other cities of Valinor on a daily basis, but as a granddaughter of Indis—the _second_ wife of Finwe, king of the Noldor—through her daughter Irime it was a shadow Gloredhel knew far too well.

_Haruni_ [1] _Miriel had been skilled in weaving beyond measure, but it well-known how she had laid down her body the year after giving birth to Haru_ [2] _Finwe’s eldest son, Fëanáro, for in him the fire of her spirit was spent and quenched, and she was weary of life, and death touched the elves for the first time since before the Great Journey._

_Those deaths had been tragic but under the looming Darkness at_ Cuiviénen not so unexpected.

But Miriel … she had not fallen by the sword, not been taken by the Enemy, not drowned in a raging river. She had been weary, and in her weariness, she had given up her life of her own free will.

In her youth long before, Gloredhel had heard the stories of her grandfather’s first wife, remembered seeing some of her tapestries in certain rooms in the House of Finwe in Tirion, but Miriel herself dwelt in Mandos’ Halls now, the great, cavernous, shadowy halls of the Doomsman on the northern shores of Aman, which looked out upon the Encircling Sea. (There she would dwell forever, it seemed, for it was declared that one of the Eldar could not have two living spouses.) Some of her cousins had explored that north before, come even to the boundaries of the Halls itself, but Gloredhel had never dared. Though she had loved stories of her cousins’ many and strange adventures, she had rarely stirred beyond Tirion, Valimar, or the stretch of country between the two cities.

Then the First Kinslaying happened.

Then the Doom.

Then the Burning of the Ships at Losgar.

Then the Helcaraxë.

And death in all its forms—slow and fast, clean kills or not, by the sword or by the elements or by starvation—had become an all-too frequent occurrence.

Death could happen at any moment. To anyone. Of any rank, high or low.

Father.

Mother.

Brother or sister.

Cousin.

Friend.

Anyone could perish, for the Helcaraxë, for Beleriand was not Valinor before the Darkening where the days were long and beautiful and unchanging and where bad things almost never happened.

What is it like to die?

How do you describe dying?

How do you describe death?

Miriel was only the first of Finwe’s line to die … the first of many.

Gloredhel had seen so much death in the years after leaving Valinor: death of elves, of men, of orcs, of beasts. So much death. So much death until even safe in her bed, she could almost close her eyes and see death

smell the stench of bodies decaying under the heart of the sun

feel the blood of the dying caked upon her hands.

Death was the curse of the House of Finwe and its descendants, of their people the Noldor, and by the time of Gloredhel’s death, it was shorter to count the list of the living of Finwe’s house upon the nearer shores than those who had died.

Maedhros, Maglor, and Amras still lived, or so the news that came to Gondolin said. (Three of the seven sons of Feanor). Whether Celebrimbor’s fate after the fall of Nargothrond was, she didn’t know. Artanis lived, as well, so it was said. Gil-Galad, too, as being sent away to Círdan had spared him the fate of his parents and sister. (Two of the seven descendants of Finarfin’s house.).

The lists of the dead went on and on.

Tears unnumbered.

Her twin yet lived, Gloredhel knew, as she lay gasping out her last breaths upon the cobbled streets of once-fair Gondolin, but not for long, that much she knew. She was the far-sighted, but he was the foresighted. His last whispered message of comfort, “We shall not be parted long, sister,” as he had kissed her bloodied forehead and left her behind told her that Gondolin would be their doom, both of theirs doom.

As it had been Ecthelion’s.

And Turgon’s.

And Aredhel’s long before in its own way.

Perhaps if the Valar were merciful, Earendil and Idril would escape. Idril, at least, should have been out of the city. What Earendil’s fate was, the poor, little child, Gloredhel knew not. Perhaps Maeglin, too, for as the elves reckoned time, he was so young but had seen far too much in his short years.

What was it like to die?

For Gloredhel, death was first of all painful, but hers was not an easy death. It was less painful than many of her house who had perished, than her brother perishing in fire and steam at the Great Fountain. Then Fingon? Bound by a Balrog’s burning whip and then cut asunder less than a bowshot away from her. Finrod? Torn asunder by a werewolf, though he was its doom, or so the tales said.

Dying was agony.

As Gondolin burned around her and orcish feet profaned its once gleaming streets, Gloredhel lay upon the cobbled streets where she had fallen. An arrow from an orcish bow had caught her full in the throat where her damaged armor left her vulnerable, spilling blood across her golden armor like a waterfall. She had dropped where she stood, her back plowing painfully into the pitted wall of a damaged house, but she had already been dying, already in agony, fighting for each and every breath.

A sword had caught her in the side … earlier … time seemed different now … as she lay dying…. they had been fighting for so long … everything was a blur of fighting, of running, of screaming for the beloved dead as the fall, for the presence in her mind that disappeared.

Every breath since then every breath had sent agony coursing through her body, as her broken ribs, shattered by that sword blow, were jolted. Blood had been slowly filled her lung. Breathing had already been growing more difficult by the time she had parted from Glorfindel, her beloved twin, and when coughing fits racked her body, blood had coated her mouth with its copper taste.

The arrow to her throat only hastened that death, and she met the eyes of the orc archer whose crossbolt was her doom. A cut throat was a quick death but not instantaneous, and in those moments left to her after she fell in a clatter of armor and a sprawl of limbs, Gloredhel met the archer’s eyes and gave one final defiant smile, her white teeth stained red with blood.

Never let it be said that one of Finwe’s house went down easily.

The ring of orcish bodies around her testified to that, though not all had fallen to her sword. She had not died alone in this square. She was only one of many to hold the rear against the oncoming tide of orcs, to give what few survivors there were a chance of survival.

Death was pain.

Death was the agony of stuttered breaths and of drowning when there was air all around her.

Death was that all consuming ache in her lungs and the taste of blood upon her lips.

Death was the agony of fractured bones grinding together.

Death was the agony of shattered hopes and griefs unnumbered.

Death was fear that all she loved might perish.

Death was the cold creeping up her limbs, a kind of chill that no fire, no cloak could take away, a chill that Gloredhel had not felt since those nightmarish, unending years crossing the Grinding Ice where true warmth had almost become a distant cruel memory by the end.

Death was pain.

And yet …

Death was release.

Death was relief.

Their king was dead. Turgon was dead, for whose sake as well as for that of their _Atar_ and _Amil_ , the twins had forsaken the Blessed Realm. Gloredhel had seen the fall of the King’s Tower, heard the shrieks of joy of the dark creatures that Morgoth had sent into their city. Despite the rift that grown between her and her cousin in the last yen, despite the fact that Turvo had been changed terribly by grief and death and loss, he was still her family, one of the few she had left, still the cousin that had played a large role in her childhood.

Ecthelion was dead. Gloredhel had seen him fall, his broken body locked in one final battle against Gothmog. A battle worthy of legend by which Findo had been avenged, but Ecthelion, their brother in all but blood, who had been by their side since he had saved her from the Grinding Ice, was dead. And Faeleth, her belly round with child, was left. Ecthelion would never see his son born. It was not even assured that Faeleth would live to give birth to their boy.

Rog was dead. Her husband was dead. So few years they had had together compared to the span of their lives, but she had treasured each and every one. She had watched him fall with all of his house around him, a brave last stand worthy of everlasting glory and renown.

That day had been one of desperate valor and many mighty deeds.

Many songs might still be written and sung to honor those deeds.

If only some might survive to actually write them.

And Glorfindel would be dead soon. His hours were numbered, and she could not even fight to the end at his side.

And Gloredhel was alone.

Death was relief.

And with one last thought for her family, those of whom still breathed, and for what fate might await her on whom the Doom lay, Gloredhel heaved out one final, bloody, painful breath and then lay still, her eyes glazing over in death.

In the distance, her fea heard the sound of a horn, the call of Mandos, and thence she sped to follow the call.

Death was a relief.

And perhaps mercy might still be found for those under the Doom.

* * *

Death was a relief.

Being dead, however, was frighteningly different.

Gloredhel closed her eyes in Gondolin, hacking out one last bloodied, defiant, frothy breath around the arrow that had caught her in the throat, and opened her eyes to darkness. For a few moments, caught in her mind between life and death, she could still feel the pain of her death wounds, the chill of death creeping over her, and then she opened her eyes to darkness. For a few moments, though she was renowned for her eye-sight, she could see nothing, but then to her eyes, darkness resolved into shapes and shadows. Somewhere around her she could hear screams and cries and laments and moans.

This was Mandos’ Halls.

The Halls of the Dead.

The words of Mandos’ Doom flew back into her mind: “Slain ye may be, and slain ye shall be: by weapon and by torment and by grief; and your houseless spirits shall come then to Mandos. There long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies, and find little pity though all whom ye have slain should entreat for you.”

What was her fate to be? Though Gloredhel had slain none at Alqualondë, she had disobeyed. She had left Valinor with the host of _Ñolofinwë_ , following their family to an uncertain fate. Despite Arafinwë’s earnest, heart-felt entreaties for them to turn back with him, to return to Tirion, to not disobey and go to their doom so that only death would return them to him, they had soldiered on.

 _At least, in death we might find some of our kin again_.

_If there is any mercy to be found in death, that is._

Gloredhel thought to herself, pushing herself to her feet, though she had no feet now, no body, no hands. It seemed nonsensical to even be able to do something as mundane as push herself upright since she had no hroa now, but so it was.

She focused, and her spirit remembered its body, remembered its shape in the likeness of her own body, and she was dressed as she would have on a normal day in Gondolin when there was nothing more pressing to do than pester her brothers good-naturedly and make sure Rog and Maeglin remembered to emerge from their forges for food and drink. Her long, golden hair was in its normal braid, adorned with the beads her husband had made for her, and her ring still sat on one long-fingered hand. Yet she could see through her own hands, and if she thought to long and hard, the edges of her spirit-form seemed to flicker like a candle in the breeze.

Gloredhel took a deep breath to steady herself and then laughed aloud at herself and then cried. She could breathe without pain now, without tasting blood—though her edges flickered again at the thought of her death and all the blood, and she could feel a distant echo of pain, taste a distant echo of blood.

 _You’re dead_ , she reminded herself, _you don’t have to breathe_ , but it felt natural to breathe, and so she did.

 _What now?_ She wondered? _What do I do know? Where do I go?_

Was there judgment to face now? Or was there contemplation and then judgment?

As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, Gloredhel could make out passages that stretched as far as her eyes could see, running along straight or even curving with new passages turning off at random angles at random intervals. Beautifully woven tapestries decorated the marble-like walls, and when she stepped closer to them to take a look, she saw that they told the story of the struggles of the free peoples in Beleriand against the shadow of Angband and the power of Morgoth.

The section of tapestry she was looking at showed Beren’s quest for the Silmaril and, particularly, the grisly, horrific death of Finrod at the werewolf’s hand. Her stomach lurched, and Gloredhel turned away, beginning to weep again for the cousin she loved laid low so foully. Even to walled-off Gondolin snippets of news about his death had come, but hearing of it was tame compared to seeing an image woven with more colors than Gloredhel had ever had in her large collection of paints.

_Finrod is dead._

_I am dead_.

_Ecthelion is dead._

_Rog is dead._

_Turgon is dead._

_Glorfindel will have perished soon, if he has not already._

Death was a relief in a way. Freedom from the pain in her body and mind. Though strength could be found in the most unlikely of ways at the most unlikely of times, it seemed impossible to her at that moment that she could have found the strength within her to go on after all those crushing losses of almost all that she had loved.

 _I think I would have faded_.

Gloredhel could hear the _fea_ of other elves nearby, which meant that she was not alone … not truly alone … even though her mind was silent, and she felt adrift in a dark sea. Mandos had decreed that the Noldor would abide at length in his halls to atone for their sins, but perhaps those long years were not meant to be spent alone and isolated.

 _That would be worse than death_.

What now?

_Pick a direction and start walking._

So many had died among the Noldor, the Teleri, the Sindar, and all those who had refused the Call at the time of the Great Journey. There were so many who now dwelt in the halls. It would take much searching, she feared, to find any of her kin, but she would search, search until it was time for judgment, for Gloredhel did not know which came first.

_Judgment first or contemplation on all my wrongs?_

Time had no effect upon the dead, and time had no meaning for the dead.

Gloredhel wandered up one hall and down the next, turning this way and that as the fancy struck her. With no idea of the layout of the Halls and no seeming organization to where fea were found (those of all kindreds and times mixed together), picking a path by random seemed as likely to lead her to those she loved as any other.

Here and there she stopped to examine the tapestries she passed, anxious for any news, good or bad, of the survivors of Gondolin. Not knowing their fate was worse by far than even knowing that they had perished. Save for her, the House of the Hammer of Wrath had perished to the last fighter outside the walls battling with Rog. Anyone who had been sheltering inside their Great House perished, too, crushed by the falling walls brought down by the bulk of some great beast. Yet, some of the House of the Fountain and the Golden Flower yet lived, familiar and much-loved faces had survived when Gloredhel had parted from there.

And perhaps … perhaps … Maeglin and Tuor and Idril and Earendil … perhaps at least some of them might survive, the last of the royal house.

At times Gloredhel passed scenes of events that she knew or had heard of, though she had not seen them herself, or even had seen with her own eyes. She wept until her heart almost broke with the weight of her grief to see the fall of cousin Findo at the Nirnaeth to once again seem him cut asunder by the great ax of Gothmog. _You are avenged, Findo_. She had been but a bowshot away when he fell, as she and Turvo had tried to cut their way through the enemy lines to their brother-cousin-king’s assistance.

_We failed you_.

Gloredhel wept to see the fall of her beloved uncle Ñolofinwë, who had wounded Morgoth himself seven times and whose broken body Thorondor had borne to Gondolin for burial. She had helped prepare his body for the tomb before the cairn had been built over him. Training as a healer had made her too aware of the causes behind many types of wounds, but she could have done without seeing her uncle’s fall in horrifying detail.

Gloredhel wept for her young cousin Ambarussa who burned at Losgar, whose death (it was said) had only sent her uncle spiraling further and more quickly into madness, whose death had forever changed his twin. She wept for those she loved who had perished upon the Grinding Ice: for Elenwë, for her parents, for all of her people who had died. She wept for all of her family then, for the uncle that had been kind and patient in her youth, for the cousins she had loved before deepening divisions had cut a great rift between the descendants of Miriel and Indis. She wept for those who had fallen under the blades of her uncle, her cousins, and her people. Nothing could undo the blood that had been spilled at Alqualondë and the horrors that had happened afterwards, but despite the unconscionable nature of their actions, Gloredhel hoped against hope that one day there might be forgiveness for even Feanoro and his seven sons.

_A curse on that thrice be-damned Oath._

_And a curse on our thrice be-damned tempers and pride_. Those were almost at fault in many ways for the ills that had befallen Finwe’s House as the Oath.

Irime’s daughter passed many _fea_ as she wandered the halls of the dead. Some faces here and there she recognized. Most she did not. Some still bore the marks of their death wounds or other wounds received in life, whose impacts were so grievous that they had incised themselves upon the soul itself. Here was a fighter who she recognized as one of Neylo’s followers long ago. There was a cook from Fingolfin’s settlement at Mithrim. Here was the maid who had helped her braid her hair somedays in Gondolin before she had gone to the house of her husband, and there was a server at the great table at the House of the Fountain. Here were the children of Gondolin who had never escaped, beloved faces, who Gloredhel wept to see as she greeted them, hugging them and kissing them. When asked, some had seen members of her family or even met them in the halls … sometime before … some halls before, but time did not seem concrete, and sometimes the halls seemed to change before her eyes.

Gloredhel kept moving forward.

Time had less meaning in the halls, so she had plenty of time to search.

Sometime she would find her family.

_Or they will find me_.

She still had faith.

* * *

Gloredhel wandered on and on. The shadowy halls of Mandos seemed endless, and more than once she circled back upon passages she has already came through. The only way she could remember where she had already been was by the scenes on the walls, and when she found herself in an old hall for the …. she had lost count of how many times she had passed through a hall at least twice … and Gloredhel began to weep.

The quietness and peace of Mandos’ Halls was comforting after the battles and death and fire and blood and griefs unnumbered that she had faced in the last few centuries of her life— _though I could do without some of these tapestries—_ but being alone … that was something she had rarely if ever faced. Even in her childhood, even when her twin was absent, she could still feel his presence through their bond, and there had always been cousins around to play with. Even in Gondolin when her brothers were absent, there had always been someone: Turvo, Idril, Rog, someone.

Gloredhel was not used to being alone.

Death was lonely, and that was the worst part.

_I would be glad even to see Celegorm again._

He had been one of her favorite cousins once … before Morgoth, before the Kinslayings, before he had changed into someone who bore little resemblance to the good-natured, if hot-tempered, cousin … _which of us is not, though, in our own way? …._ who had taught her the languages of Manwe’s birds, who had played with her and carried her on his back, who had given her rides on Huan’s back, who had told her stories of his adventures with Irisse while Gloredhel had drawn illustrations for his notebooks detailing those adventures, who had tried to not let the rift between his father and the children of Indis come between the younger cousins.

Sometimes she thought that she would be glad of a sight of any face from her family, even Fëanáro. Her half-uncle had always been one for his fierce extremes: in his loves, in his hates, in his passions and crafts. He loved his children fiercely, disliked Ñolofinwë and Irime with a passion. Fëanáro could be fierce at times, but he had not been deliberately cruel, especially to the children of his half-siblings. _As much as he disliked our parents, he judged us on our own merits_. His quarrel had been with his half-siblings, not with the young ones. He had changed beyond reckoning later. After the creation of the Silmarils. After Formenos and the death of Finwe. After the First Kinslaying. After Losgar, it was said. _He was kind to me, and I loved him. I loved all my family_.

She loved them and she missed them.

Gloredhel missed Ecthelion.

She missed her twin.

She missed her husband.

She missed her cousins, her uncles, and the aunts who had remained in Valinor.

She missed her parents who had sullied their line with the blood of the Teleri and had died on the Ice.

Being alone was the worst part of death. Regrets from her life, Gloredhel had a plenty. She did not need isolation to dwell on them or even acknowledge them.

And so she wandered on.

* * *

As it happened it was not Gloredhel that found her kin but her kin that found her first. She found herself wandering down yet another long passageway that stretched on and on until its end fell into shadow—she remembered seeing the Halls once from far and wondered now how what she found herself in fit in what she remembered seeing.

 _Maybe your mind is playing tricks on you_.

_I’m dead._

_Can my mind play a trick on me?_

“Niece?” A familiar voice suddenly called, soft but yet so loud in the quiet of the hall.

There were only two who dwelt in the Halls who might call her that, and she doubted that Feanoro would be allowed to wander freely. _There might be a riot_.

Gloredhel whipped around in a sudden movement that made her hair swirl for a moment like a cloud, loose like she had occasionally left it when she was young before it go too long and too out of control unbraided. _When did it change? It was braided … some time ago_. There were other _fea_ in the hall besides her and that of the one who had spoken, and she scanned for the face to which that familiar voice belonged. The others were making way, though, revealing the _fea_ of a tall elf, with hair as black as night, who was dressed for court. His tunic was blue, edged with silver, and a sword that glittered like ice hung at his hip.

“Uncle!” Gloredhel cried aloud, for Fingolfin it was. The once High King of the Noldor was a far cry from the last time she had laid eyes on him after Thorondor had born his body back to Gondolin. His body was whole, no longer broken and marred so greatly that she could barely recognize his face and form. He wore no armor that was rent and broken, and his body was no longer stained with blood and dirt and the mire of battle.

 _What has become of his cairn?_ Gloredhel suddenly wondered, her mind returning to her fallen … _falling?_ city. _What will become of it? Or should I be asking what has become of it?_ (Though the Halls were a physical place she had seen with her own eyes, inside time seemed to have little to no meaning.) Her uncle’s cairn had been built by Turgon and the twins high in the mountains encircling the city with some help from Maeglin, who had never gotten to meet his grandfather. _Will Thorondor and his people still guard it? Will they remain with the city fallen?_

“Oh, Gloredhel,” breathed the High King in horror, his face filling with pain, “What has brought you here?"

Gondolin had been the last of the hidden realms standing, though Fingolfin had died before the death of Finrod and the fall of Gondolin three years later.

Gloredhel suddenly realized that she had frozen in place, unmoving like a novice in her first battle, and headless of any dignity that she might have been expected to show in life as one of House of Finwe, she ran forward and threw herself into her uncle’s shadowy arms. Ñolofinwë caught her with ease and clasped her to his chest, holding her tightly and pressing a soundless kiss to her hair, as Gloredhel buried her face in his soft robes and began to weep again.

 _I was so alone_.

“What happened?” Her uncle asked, finally pulling away but keeping her face framed between his large hands, “What brought you here, child? You were supposed to be safe.”

Gloredhel’s heart went cold, and her knees nearly gave out so great was her horror.

_He doesn’t know_.

_Valar have mercy! He doesn’t know_.

Fingolfin had not seen the tapestries of Gondolin’s demise or seen Turgon or her brothers yet. He didn’t know that the last hidden city had fallen, that the last of his children was dead.

Gloredhel’s heart broke within it, knowing the news she would have to break to her uncle.

Death was griefs unnumbered.

Arakáno had barely had time to see Arda before dying in his father’s arms at the Battle of Lammoch. His broken body had become Gloredhel’s predominant memory of her young cousin.

Aredhel had died next, slain by … well, that depended on whom you listened to … (The dominant narrative had been that she had slain by her own husband, Eol, the Dark Elf, the Dark Smith, but Maeglin had never believed that his father could have brought himself to raise a hand against his own much-loved wife. Gloredhel herself had been somewhat suspicious, but considering that there had been few to no witnesses of that final confrontation, she had been able to little) after her wonderous reappearance after disappearing into the shadowed and haunted forest of Nan Elmoth while being escorted to see Fingon.

Fingon himself—valiant, kind, noble Findo, one of the favorites of all the younger children … before the ruin of their family had torn the cousins asunder—had only outlived his father by 16 years, before his own horrifying death at Gothmog’s hands.

The kingship of the Noldor was cursed and was a curse upon their line.

That one title had proved the ruin of their family.

Finwe … slain by Melkor himself before the doors of Formenos. The theft of the Silmarils that followed were the catalyst of many of the ills that followed, including sending Feanor spiraling … _further? Faster?_ towards madness.

Feanor … mortally wounded by Gothmog … _at least he died with his children with him_. All but Amrod _._ He, too, had been avenged. Gloredhel had never worked up the courage to ask her cousins if her uncle’s madness had lifted right at the end.

Maedhros … _he lives still … or he did … then_. How long it had been since she had died, Gloredhel did not know. Time seemed to have no meaning.

Fingolfin … slain by Melkor.

And now Turvo, the last of Fingolfin’s children, had also perished.

 _Oh, Uncle_.

“Gloredhel?” Her uncle was staring at her now, fear entering his eyes.

Gloredhel had thought she had spent her tears when she first found herself in the Halls, weeping for her king, as estranged as they had become; her brothers; her husband; the children who had not escaped, the brave warriors who had stood with her in her final stand; the warriors who had died with her husband outside the walls of Gondolin.

Gloredhel had thought that she had spent her tears, looking upon the tapestries that depicted … in exquisite, horrific, stomach-churning detail … the violent deaths of her cousins, the torture of Maedhros … she still remembered what his broken body had been like when Fingon had brought him back, barely alive, from that mountain peak, remembered sitting by his bedside as his wounds were cleaned, as he burned with fever, remembering lending what little skill she had in healing to the healers, singing until her voice gave out and her body ached with weariness …

Maedhros had been one of her favorite cousins long ago—he and Findo had doated on her as a child, treating her like their sister among the pack of cousins. _For twelve years I was the only girl_. She had thought for years that she hated him, but … _what is the point of hate beyond the grave?_ What had all her family died for? Morgoth was still in power, and kingdom after kingdom fell in succession to his power. King after king died.

_Our line has almost ended._

_Our people have followed us to the death, and for what?_

But now Gloredhel felt tears pricking her eyes once more, threatening to fall. she pulled away from her uncle’s embrace, stiffening her spine and blanking her face, until she was not a niece telling her uncle that his son was dead but a commander speaking to her king. She bowed low, “Alas for Gondolin, aran nin.”[3]

Fingolfin straightened, and for a moment she swore the shadow of a crown flicker across his forehead, and his sword hung again at his side.

“Gondolin has fallen to Morgoth, and Turgon your son has perished,” Gloredhel forced the words past the lump in her throat, shifting from the familiar address to her uncle to the formal address to her once-king,

“My grandchildren?” Fingolfin’s voice was strangled.

_So you have seen Aredhel then._

_How else would he know?_

_It isn’t like we sent word of her death and Maeglin's existence to Barad Eithel._

_Have you seen Findo? He knew ... before the end._

Gloredhel’s face grew graver, “Of Maeglin’s fate, I know nothing, aran nin. Idril lived last I knew, though the danger was far from past, and there was far for the survivors to go to reach safety.”

“Your brothers?”

Ñolofinwë had been one of the first to thank Ecthelion for his service to their family in saving her life— _saving me from a watery grave like Elenwë_ —and one of their first to accept him into the extended family circle.

Gloredhel bit her lip to hold back her tears anew and shook her head, “Ecthelion fell in battle within the city. Though he was mortally wounded and had no sword, he drove Gothmog into the Great Fountain, where they drowned together.” An ironic death for the Lord of the House of the Fountain. “Findo and Uncle Feanaro are avenged. Gwanunig nin,[4]” her voice broke for a moment, “He lived when last I saw him, but he knew he would join me soon.”

 _But I can’t find him_.

Fingolfin bowed his head in sorrow and acknowledgement both, “Alas for Gondolin.”

Gloredhel echoed the lament and then stepped back into her uncle’s offered embrace.

“Your husband?” Fingolfin asked finally.

Gloredhel started, _Word of my marriage was never sent either. A curse on Turgon’s inconsistently-enforced rules_ , but then remembered, _You met his eyes across the hall_ , rather than her usual habit of starring at noses and foreheads and eyebrows and cheekbones. _He knows_. She shook her head, unable to tell of how she watched Rog perish.

“I’m so sorry, my child, so very sorry.”

They stood in that hall for some little time longer, embracing, and then Ñolofinwë wrapped one strong arm around his niece’s trembling shoulders and started guiding her up the hall. As they walked, Gloredhel felt an echo of the warm cloak her uncle had worn in the winters in Valinor brush across her arm, and she smiled at the memory of happier times, of snowball fights and warm spiced tea, of getting absolutely soaked playing and then being wrapped up in warm blankets and fed hot soup before a roaring fire place while one of the older family members told stories or songs were sung. All that was before the Trees had perished, when one could only find cold and snow and winter outside the direct boundary of the Power’s sphere, before Gloredhel had any idea of what _true_ cold was.

Very few things in Beleriand had seemed truly cold after the Helcaraxë.

“Have you seen any of the others yet?” Her uncle asked.

“No,” Gloredhel replied, “I’ve been looking and looking, but however many I’ve asked, you were the first to find me.”

Ñolofinwë hummed and turned them up the first side passage they came across, “I saw Finrod a few halls back. Let’s see if we can find him again.”

* * *

Arto was not a few halls back where Fingolfin had last seen him, but wandering the halls with her uncle for company and support was less trying, and being dead had become much less lonely just by finding one of her much-loved and long-lost kin again. They ignored the distressing scenes that they pass but occasionally stopped to look upon scenes of happier times, for even in the darkest winters of their early years in Mithrim where cold and starvation were as great an enemy as the servants of Morgoth, there were still good moments if only you looked for them. The two also took turns recalling happier memories from Valinor before Melkor, before the darkening, before brother had turned on brother.

Death was peaceful, though the shadow of Judgment still to be pronounced hung over her.

It was not Finrod that Gloredhel and her uncle encountered next but dark-haired Arakáno, towering nearly head and shoulders above some of the shadowy _fea_ in the hall as he examined a particular section of tapestry. She had always thought of him as Arakáno, even after Sindarin had largely replaced Quenya as the common tongue of their people, even after her own name had been translated into Sindarin like the rest of her kin. Argon, the genealogies of their house had named him: “High Commander.”

Yet young, impetuous Arakáno, he would always remain to Gloredhel. For a moment as her cousin turned to greet his father, she blinked and saw a shadow of her last memory overlayed over his form, his form bloodied, his armor rent more times than she could count as he lay gasping out his dying breath in his father’s arms, his eyes full of fear. Arakáno’s impetuosity and strength at arms had helped win the days for the elves at Lammoth, as he hewed his way through the enemy lines, even killing one of the greatest orc captains, but his impetuosity had proved his doom when he became separated and, alone, was cut down.

“Atar,” Arakáno greeted his father. (From the tenor of his voice, Gloredhel knew that the two had found each other before.) His eyes widened as he saw who was tucked against Nolofinwë’s side, but then he cocked his head, a hint of confusion in his eyes, “Laurëlda?”

_Over five-hundred years since last we met._

_Artanis and I did look more alike in our youth._

Gloredhel nodded, smiling, and stepped forward to embrace him, “It is good to see you well, Arakáno.”

Her cousin’s embrace was tight, but his voice was almost strangled when he spoke again, “What are you doing here, cousin? What happened?”

_A blessing that we are now reunited even in death._

_A curse that it is death must reunite our family_.

“Gondolin has fallen,” Gloredhel replied.

Arakáno looked over her shoulder, probably at his father, and a glimmer of thought seemed to pass between them, and then her cousin bowed his head in grief. Gloredhel knew what had been said almost without a doubt.

 _Turvo is dead_.

“Alas for Gondolin,” Arakáno whispered, a shadow of shadowy tears glimmering in his shadowy eyes. It was strange how much death was like life. “Alas for my brother.” With an effort, he steadied his voice, “Your brothers?”

Gloredhel shook her head, feeling a wave of renewed grief. _Tears bring healing. Grief retained only festers like a wound_. And yet it felt at some points like her grief might swallow her whole. _Tears unnumbered, so it was fated_.

A light of old, remembered fiery spirit entered her cousin’s eyes. “Let us look for them, then,” declared Arakáno, “together, and _atar_ can return to his searching. I grow bored of this aimless wandering and these self-same tapestries.”

There was a tinge of hesitation in Nolofinwë’s eyes, so Gloredhel reached out, brushing her thoughts against his, _We’ll be fine, uncle. Go find your son_.

Her uncle smiled sadly. _Sons. Findekáno, I have not yet found_.

“Then go, uncle, and good journey to you,” Gloredhel said in farewell, “And give my cousins my love when you find them.”

 _We are all dead, and the dead have nothing but time to search_.

The three bade each other farewell and then parted ways, Ñolofinwë taking one passageway and Gloredhel and Arakáno another. Her cousin was anxious to hear news, as she imagined any would be from those newly come. She spoke to him all she knew of their kin and what had occurred in the long years since his death, of kingdoms risen and fallen, of victories against Morgoth and crushing defeats, of heroes slain and unremembered bravery, and yet of the lighter moments, of friendly banter, of joyous meetings unlooked for (even on the battlefield), of new friendships, of love and laughter.

_As it is said Hurin cried before he fell, Aurë entuluva!_

_Day shall truly come again._

_One day or another._

_The darkness cannot last forever, we must believe that_.

_Auta i lómë! And the night will pass._

_And day shall return._

* * *

Death was exasperating, since not even death itself could put family squabbles to rest.

It was the raised and heated voices, in fact, that led Arakáno and Gloredhel to the next two members of their family. Angrod and Aegnor were standing before a scene that depicted the fall of Nargothrond. The two were arguing loudly, and a wide space had open up around them, as passing elves gave them a wide birth.

Orodreth had died there, as had his daughter Finduilas, outliving their father and grandfather Angrod by only forty some years.

_Despite all that we have lost, that I have lost, losing my child … being helpless to aid them … knowing only of their fates from these tapestries, if you don’t find them first, … that is far worse._

What exactly the two brothers were arguing about was not immediately apparent, but Gloredhel almost laughed all the same despite the horror of the tapestry. For all his generosity and nobility of spirit, Aegnor was plagued as most of Finwe’s descendants were with a hot temper, and there were none like siblings who could drive one’s temper to the blazing point, and Angrod, who was always vulnerable to sharp words … _especially Caranthir’s_ , frequently responded in kind.

 _As fiercely as they argue, they can lay aside their quarrels aside in moments to unite against some verbally attacking one of them if they need arises_. And then they would go right back to arguing.

Gloredhel shook her head, half fondly and half in exasperation, and Arakáno intentionally met her eyes and rolled his.

 _Sometimes I think all of us, not just Celegorm, should have been christened Tyelkormo **[5]**_ _for the temper we inherited._

Aunt Nerdanel was, in her own way, one of the wisest of the family with a deep understanding of others and a drive to understand, not master, them. Her mother-names for her children had always been on-point, though some like Caranthir’s, which meant “Red-Face” which applied to both his ruddy coloring and the color his face took on when his temper was high, were rather convicting and horrifically embarrassing at the same time.

Despite the fact that both cousins were older than her, Gloredhel still had the urge to scold them or, but instead she settled for the calmer, “Peace, cousins,” as she and Arakáno approached, pushing power into her words.

The only reason, Gloredhel was sure, that her words of power worked on her stubborn cousins was because of their surprise in seeing her there. Surprise was replaced by horror and then by grief, and more tears were shed and tales told as Gloredhel again related news of the fall of Gondolin and of the High King’s death. _The third in less than a yen_. They were very interested in the details of the final battle, and Gloredhel told what she could in detail, focusing on both the combats worthy of renown—Ecthelion and Gothmog and the House of the Hammer of Wrath with the creatures of fire and iron outside the walls **—** as well as the battles on the street that had required just as much courage though they would not be remembered in song—those who held the way to give those who could not fight time to escape, the young soldiers with pale and determined faces who held their ground despite the terrifying foe that faced them, giving the non-combatants time to flee.

Her own death, she glossed over. Dying with an arrow to the throat was not a glorious death worthy of song, and choosing to stay behind to hold the way … she had done what needed to be done to save her people, not because of any great courage of her own.

_I was terrified, but I was dying even then._

_I would have slowed them down_.

 _Better to buy them a few precious extra minutes_.

Gloredhel wondered whether the scenes of Gondolin’s fall had been woven already or whether they were yet to be finished. _Do they weave as events happen? Or do they finish after the fact as Aunt Findis would have to?_ Her heart was sore over the fate of her people and her city, and she wished to know if any survivors had managed to escape, if Idril still lived, if Earendil still lived, if Maeglin had made it out. If Faeleth and the baby … _Valar spare them!_

Arakáno and Gloredhel remained with Angrod and Aegnor for some time longer, talking and asking after what family the two brothers had seen. Angrod had seen his son sometime before, though not his granddaughter, but considering the look of grief in his eyes at the mention of his son’s name, Gloredhel presumed that the scars on Orodoreth’s _fea_ were deep indeed. It was known that he had died in Nargothrond, defending his city to the end, but _how_ exactly he had died, the stories did not say. Aegnor had seen Finrod before he had found Angrod most recently, and Arto had said that he had seen Lalwen, Gloredhel’s mother, and Amrod, as well.

_I hope he has found some peace._

Despite the conflict between Fëanáro and his half-brothers, that same conflict had not existed, at least in the beginning to any degree, _between Fëanáro’s children and most of the cousins_ _,_ and there had been deep friendships between many of them, some of which survived the First Kinslaying, some of which had not. Maedhros had been the favorite of many, the consummate older brother in many ways. Maglor, though somewhat moody, had almost always been willing with a song, and Celegorm had been close with the more adventurous ones.

Gloredhel had been so angry after the Oath, after the Kinslayings. Though she grieved the loss of her grandfather, the response of Fëanáro and his sons seemed rash and excessive. There had been no need to shed the blood of their kin … for boats of all things. Fëanáro was mighty in speech, and so were others of Finwe’s house. _Might Olwë have been convinced to change his mind?_ Dark deed had been multiplied by dark deed during the following years, until her cousins became changed, warped by their course in life and the consequences of their oath, until in personality, she could barely reconcile them with the cousins she had known in her youth.

Grief and pity warred with anger now, when she thought of her cousins, especially for Amrod and Amras—as a twin, she knew the pain of separation.

_What good is anger beyond the grave?_

_What good does holding grudges do now?_

_What good does holding their deeds against them now?_

_Feanor's sons have paid for their horrible crimes with their lives, with the loss of their brothers and their father and their mother and, for some, their wives, with the price their own Oath has laid upon their heads, with what would be crushing guilt if they could think beyond those blasted jewels._

Their own memories and their own guilt would be worse punishments than her anger would be. Gloredhel could not imagine that with time to stop and think now of what the Oath had cost them, what that thrice be-damned Oath had led them to do, that they did not have regrets. Her cousins were not heartless despite what some of their actions in Beleriand might have indicated. That thrice be-damned Oath had just twisted them and changed them beyond measure.

 _I think I would like to see them again_.

Gloredhel longed for peace.

_They have paid and are paying for their crimes._

_Perhaps we may lay the past to rest and let the feuds between us go._

* * *

Eventually Gloredhel and Arakáno moved on, leaving Angrod and Aegnor to continue their own wanderings. It was ironic, Gloredhel mused, as they walked the Halls, talking, looking at the tapestries, and self-reflecting on their own deeds in life in turn, that it had taken death itself for her to spend this much time with Arakáno.

It was when they were half-way down one hall that was decorated with tapestries depicting the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, memories that Gloredhel would have much preferred not to dwell on, that something strange happened. Something soft brushed against the back of her legs, and she startled. Then a rough tongue licked her hand, and she startled even more.

Then Gloredhel looked down, and a grey furry face with its long blunt muzzle and eerily intelligent eyes looked right back at her … from not that far below her.

“Huan?!” Gloredhel exclaimed, and her free hand, the one not tucked into the crook of Arakáno’s elbow, was once again enthusiastically licked. “Huan!"

_How?_

Gloredhel really did not care for the moment _how_ exactly Huan of all creatures was in the Halls of Mandos but was just inordinately glad to see him. Releasing Arakáno’s arm, she dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around the great wolfhound’s neck, burying her face in his shaggy fur, biting back a wave of tears with an effort. Huan dropped his heavy head onto her shoulder, and for a few moments all was well.

_I missed you so much, Huan._

Tyelko was enough older than her and had been in Orome’s train long enough before she was born that Huan … had just always been a part of her life, always there. Sometimes he trailed his master around, and sometimes he just explored, sometimes playing with the children and, from time to time, dragging them … _sometimes by the backs of our tunics_ … out of trouble. Gloredhel had been heartbroken to hear of his death.

“How?” Gloredhel looked up at her cousin, who just shrugged.

“I don’t know, but father’s horse is here, too!” Arakáno replied.[6]

Gloredhel’s jaw nearly dropped. _Rochallor is here??_ Rochallor had been one of the mightiest and bravest steeds to have ever lived. One of the immortal horses of Valinor, given to her uncle as a gift, he had traveled on the ships and had been returned to Fingolfin years later. Many an orc had been felled under his pounding hooves, but he had been gentle, too. _I learned to ride on him_. Rochallor had followed his master to the end, carrying him even to the gates of Angband himself and staying with him until his death. The poor beast had outrun the wolves of Angband and then died of grief for his master upon his return to Hithlum. “Truly?”

Arakáno nodded, “I haven’t seen him, but father has. He’s the one who told me. Huan helped father find me, actually.”

“He was always good at finding us however well we hid,” Gloredhel gave a sad smile, remembering more than a few games of hide and seek in the countless rooms of the family halls in Tirion. _After a few games, the goal became to see how long it would take you to find us all. We knew that you would find us all. The only question was how long it would take._ She smoothed a hand over Huan’s long ears and pressed a kiss to his furry head.

“That he is,” her cousin agreed, “And he will probably do a better job of helping you find your brothers and your husband than I will.”

Gloredhel straightened, a slight frown on her face, “I don’t want to dismiss you, cousin. After all these years, I’m glad for your company.”

“We will see each other sooner or later whether in these halls or not,” Arakáno countered, “You will find your family all the faster with Huan’s help, and I can go help _atar_ search for my brothers.”

“Farewell, then, cousin, and give them my love when you find them.”

The two embraced and then parted ways, and Gloredhel turned back to Huan who was waiting placidly for her to finish, starring at her with those huge golden eyes. She was always amazed, the more time she spent with him, at how truly massive he was. _Longer than I am tall, and as big as a small horse!_ She laced one hand into the fur on the back of his neck and smiled down at him … down but _not by much_. Gloredhel was not short by any means by Noldorin standards, though many of her cousins and both of her brothers over-topped her, and Huan’s broad back stood at a level with her hip.

“Can you help me find my brothers, Huan?” Gloredhel addressed her cousin’s hound in Quenya, falling back onto old habit, “Death has parted us, and I would see them again.”

Huan was as good as a companion as Gloredhel had remembered. Though he had been allowed to speak only three times before his death, the great hound was intelligent as any elf or man Gloredhel had ever met, wiser perhaps in some ways, for the lusts that swayed the Noldor had no impact on him. He had no desire for power, no desire to rule, no desire to build and build and build, no love for jewels and gold. Huan could not speak in return, but he could listen and listen well, and as there had been long ago, understanding was in his eyes.

_It must have broken your heart to see Tyelko change._

In his eyes too was unconditional love and licks when she needed it, and so Gloredhel poured out her heart to him as they traveled the halls, telling him of the good and of the bad, what she thought she had done right and even what she desperately wished she had done differently. _Turvo, Maeglin, my uncle, I could make a list._ There was healing in death, healing that came with time to stop and think about something beside the looming shadow of Angband, for even when Turgon had shut the gates and commanded none might leave the Tumladen, her thoughts had often turned to those of her kin still fighting the shadow.

 _They are beyond my help now_.

* * *

It was Ecthelion whom Gloredhel and Huan found first, and it was the soft sound of a flute that led them to him, and somehow, Gloredhel was not surprised at all that her brother would have one of his flutes with him even in death. _The children always loved to hear you play._ Ecthelion had found himself a bench and was sitting upon it, awkwardly holding his flute with his right hand only. His left arm hung limp at his side, and there was a strange smell about him, a combination of the mustiness of damp clothes that had failed to dry properly and singed … _hair, cloth?_ … about him. _Burning of Gothmog combined with your … swim_. She could only he had died quickly, even instantly somehow with that final lunge and fall before the Balrog’s flames heated the water and …

 _Don’t go there_.

In many cases, it seemed, from all the wandering Gloredhel had done through the Halls, the _fea_ remembered the wounds the _hroa_ had suffered, especially when it came to death wounds and torture wounds. (If her mind wandered into dark thoughts for too long, she could still feel the pain of the arrow strike in her throat, the fire in her side of broken ribs, the pain of every breath, the taste of blood on her tongue. She could still feel the flood of blood down her neck, and if her mind wandered further to those thoughts, she could even look down and see the blood running down her neck, staining her blue-grey tunic a horrible color.)

Gloredhel had seen the _fea_ of thralls from Angband and other of Melkor or his servants’ strongholds. Some she could barely identify as elves at all, and she wondered what Rog would be like when she found him. She knew all the scars on his body and many on his mind, though he refused to speak of his time imprisoned, knew that many of his people had suffered likewise. Most of the House of the Hammer of Wrath had been former thralls.

Earlier she had wondered why her own _fea_ did not generally show signs of her death wounds, either the hole in her throat or the sword blow to her side that had broken ribs. _I can feel them sometimes. I just rarely see them._ The best she could conclude was that, as painful as her wounds had been, her death had been relatively clean and quick … compared to many, and they had been bodily wounds only and had not had time to sink into her soul before death had taken her. She was especially glad that the arrow wound was not generally manifesting, since she had no high collar or scarf to hide it, and her kin had suffered enough … _without seeing that_. _Though since uncle’s clothing changed … perhaps I could change mine_. It was a thought to contemplate more … later.

“Muindor?”[7] Gloredhel’s voice was soft as she called out to her brother.

Ecthelion started violently ( _almost impossible … before_ ), looked up, and then promptly dropped his flute in surprise. Then, without knowing who moved first or recognizing that she had actually moved forward, Gloredhel found herself in her brother’s arms, crying for joy and sorrow both. At long last, she had found him.

Finally, Gloredhel heard something besides the sound of her own tears … or his, the sound of her brother’s voice, saying, “I had hoped against hope when I woke here that one of you at least might escape.”

She shook her head, “The wound I received before Egalmoth rescued me was mortal. I never made it out of the city.” _I would have slowed the others down for naught. It was better to stay behind_.

“A last stand defending the rear,” Ecthelion replied, “You fell nobly, sister.”

Gloredhel gave a laugh that was almost a sob and a scoff at the same time, “I would have slowed down the column. Part of me hoped for a quicker death before my broken ribs and torn lung killed me, and I caught an arrow to the throat.”

“I saw the tapestries,” the arms around her tightened, and a kiss was pressed to her hair, “We fought to the end. We did all that could possibly be done, and that must be enough for us.”

 _Easier said than believed, brother_.

Then Ecthelion’s earlier words registered in Gloredhel’s mind, and she pulled away, frowning. _I hoped that one of you might escape. One of you._

Ecthelion had been the first of the three to die in the Great Fountain, a death that was both ironic and tragic for the Lord of the House of the Fountain. Then not long later, Gloredhel had turned back and died near the entrance to Idril’s Secret Way, and then Glorfindel, too, had perished somewhere outside the city, for Gloredhel knew in her heart that her twin had perished, would have known somehow in her heart even without his parting words to her.

 _Words that Ecthelion wouldn’t have known_ , for his _fea_ had already fled to the Halls.

That left two possibilities for how Ecthelion knew.

 _You saw the tapestries … you saw my fall._ Tapestries that for all her wanderings, she hadn’t found yet.

_Or he’s seen Glorfindel._

But if that were the case … _why aren’t they together?_

Often times in life the three had been as inseparable as circumstances and duties allowed. Their bond had been forged in proverbial fire … _ice actually_ … during the crossing of the Helcaraxë. Sometimes the only reason they had been able to put one foot in front of the other was the sibling beside them, half-holding them up. _I wonder if I have all my toes again_. They had survived the hard winters and years of famine that followed the settling of the Noldor, not following her half-uncle, in Beleriand as everyone grew used to time and seasons measured by the sun and moon, not the trees. They had survived battles in victory and defeat, fighting and living together until the three could predict each other’s moves and thoughts almost equally well, even use each other’s swords in place of their own almost as competently. Once or twice there had actually been jokes that Ecthelion had died his hair black and the three were actually triplets, not twins, though … as far as Gloredhel knew … there had never been _any_ triplets born to any of the Eldar.

_Why wouldn’t they be together?_

Why would death be different than life?

“Have you seen gwanunig nin?”[8] Gloredhel asked urgently, her brow furrowed in concern, an emotion in public usually hidden behind fathomless blue-grey eyes, “I know in my heart that he fell after we parted at the last.” In her urgency and with her spirit troubled, her speech slipped from the familiar to the courtly, more suited to an address in Turgon’s council than to words to her own brother.

A haunted look entered Ecthelion’s eyes, one so grievous as she hadn’t seen since the battle of Unnumbered Tears. The scent of … char … that was what it was, not singed anything, and of water grew stronger. “No,” his voice was rough, “though I have been searching for him,”— _had??_ —“but I saw his fall and yours in the tapestries and I spoke with one of Namo’s servants.”

“And?” Gloredhel prodded, still not comprehending what Ecthelion was trying to get at, “I’ve found my uncle, several of my cousins, Huan,” whose weight was still leaning against her legs now that she had stepped back from her brother’s embrace, the weight grounding her in a way to some unphysical physical reality, “which means I could find Celegorm, too. I can’t find Glorfindel or Rog no matter how much I search. Please, muindor nin,[9] what aren’t you saying?”

Ecthelion’s eyes were fully of pity and the understanding that came only from hard, life experience, “Trust me, ‘thêl.[10] Do not go searching for them. I doubt that Namo’s servants would even let you see them, but please, do not go. I do not think they would want you to see them now. Our brother, he died fighting a Balrog in the mountains passes. He died hard.”

What was it about the House of Finwe and dying by fire?

Gloredhel brushed her mind against her brother’s surface thoughts, trying to see what the thoughts behind his words were, what he still was not saying, and only felt a sensation of burning, burning, pain, pain, fire before his mental shields slammed up, and then there was nothing.

_The Balrogs are to be the death of all that I love._

_Curse them to the pits of Angband and the darkest reaches of the Void_.

Was fire to be the doom of all she loved? First Rog and the firedrake that had slaughtered the House of the Hammer of Wrath. She had watched from the walls as her house fell one by one, as Rog vanished in a swirl of fire. _I love you_ , he had whispered across their bond at the final moment, before he had clamped down on the bond hard right before the flames …, meaning that she had felt the bond break but had not felt him perish.

Then Ecthelion and Gothmog. She had watched him fall from across the Square, screamed in helpless horror as it happened. Now her twin and another balrog. _If I had survived the city,_ she knew with certainty in that moment, _I wouldn’t have seen another summer_. Grief alone … for her brothers, for her husband, for her cousins and her king, for whom in part the twins had forsaken Valinor … would have killed her.

In that moment Gloredhel cursed her eyesight that in large measure had made her so deadly with a bow. Her style of fighting clashed badly with the style of fighting—hammers and long maces—of the House of Hammer of Wrath, so in battle she always fought at one of her brother’s sides. As the siege … _the fall_ … of Gondolin began, Gloredhel had taken up her station with Duilin, Lord of the Folk of the Swallow and the greatest archer in the city, to lend her skill to their aid. Her position on the wall near Gondolin’s northern gate meant that when Gothmog with fire-drakes and iron dragons and orcs unnumberable had breached the wall and Rog and his follows had counterattacked, Gloredhel had seen it all … and been helpless to aid them … _like Findo_. It was a memory that would last with her forever.

Gloredhel knew that her husband, most of all, would not want her to see him like that, _fea_ more scared and burned then even his body had been after years unnumbered of torture. For as long as Gloredhel had known him, Rog had been subject to fey moods, and his temper, when roused, could scorch as hot as the fires in his smithy. One of worst fears had always been that in his temper or in the depths of one of his fey moods when the shadow of his time as a thrall seemed close, he would hurt her or do something that would make her fear him … or see him for the twisted creature he sometimes felt like. In over a yen of marriage before their deaths, that had never come to pass.

A keening noise suddenly split the air, and Gloredhel realized it was coming from her throat, as Ecthelion pulled her back into his arms. The scent of char around him was even stronger still, and if she had actually had a body, Gloredhel thought she might have been sick at the scent. He rocked her gently, murmuring soothing words that she did not catch.

Finally, Ecthelion lowered them both to a seat on the floor, and Huan, who had apparently decided not to go wandering off to find some other poor lost member of the House of Finwe, flopped down beside them, his bulk nearly blocking the hallway, and settled his gigantic head on Ecthelion’s thigh. Through her tears, Gloredhel wondered momentarily, if he were to do the same to her, whether she would actually feel the weight of his head or feel the remembrance of the feel of the weight of his head. _This is getting entirely too philosophical_. Even the thought made her head start to hurt, especially when it led to similar thoughts about the embraces with her family members, the feeling of her clothing, and all the various complexities of currently being a disembodied soul, which was both unnervingly similar to having a body and unnervingly different at the exact same time.

Those thoughts were at least distractions from her thoughts of death.

But then her mind went back to the bodies … all the bodies of her friends, her followers, those whom she had fought beside and served besides for centuries, those she had known since the crossing of the Grinding Ice … all lying unburied in the streets of Gondolin or the plain around the city. Worse yet was the thought of the bodies of her brothers, her husband, even her body … none to bury them, none to conduct funeral rites … the only resting place, a charnel house amidst the orcs and the great beasts of Morgoth … and their fellows.

“Not for him,” Ecthelion suddenly spoke again.

For a moment, Gloredhel was puzzled, but then she remembered that her shields tended to falter when she was grievously upset and her thoughts would leak. That was the case in life and seemed to be in death, too. With an apologetic thought brushed across her brother’s mind, Gloredhel pulled her thoughts back behind her mental shields and tried to shore those barriers up, though they still looked more like a hastily made brick-wall than anything more secure.

_Him?_

_My brother?_

_Rog?_

“What do you mean?” Gloredhel finally replied when his words sunk in.

“I saw some of the tapestries of the fall of Gondolin. Thorondor bore Glorfindel’s body up for burial,” Ecthelion replied.

 _Bore his body up? Up from where?_ Gloredhel wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that.

“Bless him,” Gloredhel murmured, “May the wind ever bear him where Anar sails and Ithil walks, and may his talons be ever sharp and his hunts ever successful.”

“Idril and Earendil, at least, escaped the city, as well,” Ecthelion continued, “so not all was in vain.”

_The city of protection was our doom._

_At least some of our line escaped_.

 _Where will they go?_ The shadow of Morgoth was growing ever stronger across Beleriand, advancing ever further. Gondolin had fallen. Nargothrond had fallen. Doriath had fallen.

_What sanctuary is there left?_

_What protection on this side of the sea?_ The west was barred against them. _It will be far for them to go to find help. Does Círdan even still hold out on the coast?_

“Valar be praised!” Gloredhel murmured in utter relief. “Maeglin?”

“I don’t know. When I saw your death and his fall, I couldn’t bear to look at more.” Ecthelion let the silence linger for a time before he began again, as he rose and then tugged her up to a seat on his bench, “Faeleth? Do you know if she’s alive?”

Faeleth. Gentle Faeleth, Ecthelion’s wife of not that many years.

Gloredhel could still see Faeleth’s face bloodless pale, her arms embracing her belly, rounded and heavy with child, not long before she had parted from her twin for the final time.

“I don’t know,” she whispered, letting her head sink down to rest on Ecthelion’s shoulder, “She lived when last I saw her, but that means nothing now.”

* * *

Time seemed to have no meaning in the Halls of Mandos, and Gloredhel could have spent a day or an age with Ecthelion, but eventually the two parted ways, Ecthelion going to search for his parents who had died on the Grinding Ice, and Gloredhel for others of her family who had died.

_In these halls or, if the Doom of the Noldor is lifted in Aman, we will meet again._

Time seemed to have no meaning, but overtime Gloredhel learned to measure how much time has passed by new major events appearing on the tapestries or by the tales of those elves newly arrived in the halls. Those less scarred by their deaths were often willing to share the date and a tale or two, especially of major battles and other major happenings in Beleriand.

Huan eventually padded away, with one final lick at her fingers, to do whatever Huan did. _Probably to check on my cousin_. Despite all that happened, she doubted that Huan had forsaken Tyelko entirely.

28 years in Mandos … 538 of the First Age … yet another Kinslaying, and her youngest cousin passed into Mandos’ care. As heartsick as she was at more death and more violence among her kin and more blood that stained her cousins’ heart, part of Gloredhel was relieved that Amrod and Amras were no longer separated, for as long as she could remembered the Ambarussa were always a pair … _like Glorfindel and I_ … so alike in face and form and temperament that for long years, it was almost impossible to tell the two apart … _until Amras’ hair finally got a shade darker_. The two had been two halves of the same whole, often moving and talking as if they were one. _It will be a mercy for them to be together again_.

7 more years … more battles … more dead … and even some of the Vanyar arrived among the slain, and the dead in Mandos learned that the Valar had finally given leave for aid to be sent to Beleriand, and that a mighty army had come there to drive back the darkness and throw down Morgoth for good.

_How?_

_Why?_

Even with the destruction of Beleriand, there was rejoicing in the Halls when the dead came bearing the news that Morgoth had been cast down from his high throne and summarily ejected into the Void, there to remain until the Final Battle, and the Halls almost seemed to echo with the rejoicing cries of the elves.

Gloredhel continued to wander as these reports came in, born on the wings of those newly departed. Once more she met with her uncle Ñolofinwë who at long last had found his eldest son. That reunion between cousins was sweet and bitter both. She loved Findo dearly—he had always been kind to her as a child, always willing to stop his work and spend time with her—but his death had become foremost in his mind, and she poured out her apologies for not reaching him in time as she wept upon his shoulder. Her cousin, whose fea still bore shadow wounds which were still not as grievous as his physical death wounds had been, looked at her sadly and instructed her to not to blame herself for he certainly did not.

“I heard you screaming right before the end,” he said, “so I knew you were close. I feared at the end that Gothmog might turn on you next. I was relieved beyond words to learn later that you had survived the battle. Do not blame yourself, I beg you. You did all you could.” Then he hugged her tightly again until she finally stopped weeping.

Even to Tyelko, Huan led her. That visit almost grieved her the most, for her good-natured cousin who loved to hunt and learn the tongues of all manner of birds and beasts, who had been as quick to laugh as he was to lose his temper was changed almost beyond recognition. The Oath had twisted him, and even as she retreated from his wrathful words, Gloredhel wept, cursing her uncle, his love for those thrice be-damned jewels, and his overpowering grief for his father which had led him toward madness and led all their people to ruin.

Gloredhel wandered more, and yet more years past …

Until …

One day, one of the Maiar servants of Mandos, its form cloaked by a dark robe that gave it shape, approached her.

It was time for Judgment.

The Judgment Hall of Mandos was the largest room in the halls that Gloredhel had seen in all her wanderings. Cousin Finrod met her there, his golden hair gleaming like a beacon, as he was led in by another Maiar. He looked better, stronger than the last time they had met … _whenever that was_ … the wounds to his fea almost completely healed, the light of old in his eyes returned. He greeted her with a kiss to the cheek, and Gloredhel linked her arm with his as they approached the judgment seat.

Come what may, they would face it together.

The Doom of the Noldor was harsh both in life and in death, but even with the Valar, even with Mandos who had pronounced their doom, there was pity to be found and forgiveness also.

Finrod and Gloredhel had left Valinor reluctantly, loyalty to their people and their family forcing their steps onward as well as their unwillingness to abandon their people to Feanor’s rule without any voices of reason present, and they had played no part in the Kinslaying, raised no weapons against their own people.

Their repentance was heard.

Their self-sacrifice was noted.

And so, it was decreed: “New bodies you shall be given, and you may walk amongst your people once more.”

* * *

[1] Quenya. “Grandmother.”

[2] Quenya. “Grandfather.”

[3] Sindarin. “My king.”

[4] Sindarin. “My twin.”

[5] Quenya. “Hasty Riser.”

[6] Inspired by “Of the Coming of Fingolfin to Mandos and His Meeting with Fëanor” by bunn on A03.

[7] Sindarin. “Brother.”

[8] Sindarin. “My twin.”

[9] Sindarin. “My brother.”

[10] Sindarin. “Sister.”

**Author's Note:**

> Due to heavy real-life responsibilities currently (mainly school), updates to this series will not be anywhere near as frequent as they usually were for my previous FBI: MW series, which will be updated sooner or later.


End file.
